What did Bush know?

From NPR today -- Karl Rove, enemy of the people:

NPR now has new information about that plan. According to someone who's had conversations with White House officials, the plan to fire all 93 U.S. attorneys originated with political adviser Karl Rove. It was seen as a way to get political cover for firing the small number of U.S. attorneys the White House actually wanted to get rid of. Documents show the plan was eventually dismissed as impractical.

The Justice Department documents released today include a spreadsheet ranking all 93 prosecutors. The chart ranks them on whether they have Hill experience, campaign experience, and — in the last column — whether they're members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.

For those who don't know, the Federalist Society includes Bush's appointee to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, and his other appointee, Justice Samuel Alito.

What does this "Society" believe?

Federalist Society publications and panels often feature discussions targeting the foundation of federal civil rights law, finding and exploiting alleged shortcomings, for example,[8] in voting rights laws, gender equity protections, and desegregation orders. In the area of labor rights, contributors to the Society's publications have celebrated the defeat of disparate impact theory as applied in a California age discrimination case and challenged sexual harassment law, Title IX, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and standard "wage gap" statistics.

Another target in Society discourse has been the separation of church and state, one of the cornerstones of American jurisprudence. Reflecting the presence of the religious right in its leadership, membership, and targeted constituencies, the Society's forums and outlets have given prominence to arguments for "school choice" and "charitable choice" (church involvement in state efforts to reform welfare), as well as creationist teachings and the distribution of religious materials in public schools.

By creating an image of itself as a catalyst for principled, high-level discussion of the law, the Federalist Society has been able to avoid sharp scrutiny by the legal profession. This is particularly the case in regard to the significant role that leading members of the Society, such as Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), have played in politicizing the process of judicial selection, and in undercutting the nation's premier organization of attorneys, the American Bar Association, and in particular its Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary.

Per Bink:

1. The White House politicized the office of U.S. Attorney

2. The White House tried to force U.S. Attorneys to create investigations and prosecutions that were politically motivated

3. These investigations and prosecutions were designed to interfere with the course of the 2006 elections

4. Biskupic (Wisconsin cast that was later thrown out of court as ridiculous) and perhaps others agreed to do the White House's dirty work

5. Iglesias (one of the fired prosecutors) and perhaps others refused

6. The lives on innocent people were damaged or destroyed by this effort

7. An innocent state worker was sent to prison on fake charges created by this effort

8. Finally, the careers of those U.S. Attorneys who refused to cooperate were upturned in the cover-up

A tangent to all of this are the efforts by the White House to destroy millions of pages of records that may have had information about this and other matters.

Rove is at the heart of this, everyone knows, and the next step is for him to say, "Yeah you uncovered me, yeah so what?" To which I say, whatever is buried in those "missing" emails, it is much worse than you can imagine.

And while no one is going here yet, the question arises again, if Harriet Miers was part of this whole matter, how is it possible that Bush wouldn't have known?

Who will be the first Senator to ask the question, and when will they ask it:

What did the President know and when did he know it?

I can't wait for someone to get caught in that lie, but I'm guessing that's why Rove et al are fighting against testifying to Congress. Because that is the question they fear the most.